American Philosophical Association (APA), Eastern Division

New York City, NY

Monday, December 28, 2008

11:15 a.m. – 1:15 p.m., Group Session GIII-8

Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Française (SAPLF)

Topic: Recent French Feminism(s)

Chair: Pleshette DeArmitt (University of Memphis)

Brigitte Weltman-Aron (University of Florida): “La ‹‹D. S.››: Sexual Difference in the Work of Hélène Cixous.”

Mary Beth Mader (University of Memphis): “Geneviève Fraisse and the Politics of Consent.”

Kelly Oliver (Vanderbilt University): “Kristeva on Freedom, Choice and Maternity”

Noelle McAfee has the new entry:

Feminist political philosophy is an area of philosophy focused on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed, often without any attention to feminist concerns, and to articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns. Feminist political philosophy is a branch of both feminist philosophy and political philosophy. As a branch of feminist philosophy, it serves as a form of critique or a hermeneutics of suspicion (Ricœur 1970). That is, it serves as a way of opening up or looking at the political world as it is usually understood and uncovering ways in which women and their current and historical concerns are poorly depicted, represented, and addressed. As a branch of political philosophy, feminist political philosophy serves as a field for developing new ideals, practices, and justifications for how political institutions and practices should be organized and reconstructed.

While feminist philosophy has been instrumental in critiquing and reconstructing many branches of philosophy, from aesthetics to philosophy of science, feminist political philosophy may be the paradigmatic branch of feminist philosophy because it best exemplifies the point of feminist theory, which is, to borrow a phrase from Marx, not only to understand the world but to change it (Marx and Engels 1998). And, though other fields have effects that may change the world, feminist political philosophy focuses most directly on understanding ways in which collective life can be improved. This project involves understanding the ways in which power emerges and is used or misused in public life (see the entry on feminist perspectives on power). As with other kinds of feminist theory, common themes have emerged for discussion and critique, but there has been little in the way of consensus among feminist theorists on what is the best way to understand them. This introductory article lays out the various schools of thought and areas of concern that have occupied this vibrant field of philosophy for the past thirty years.

Link

POWER, CONFLICT, AND COMMITMENT: RETHINKING THE POLITICAL

Second Workshop in Social and Political Thought at Michigan State University

March, 28/29, Saturday: 9am-6pm, Sunday: 9:30am-12:30pm

http://www.msu.edu/~lotz/workshop2009/index.htm

Description:

During recent decades philosophers from diverse perspectives have extensively discussed the problem of the public sphere and the language, conflicts, and outcomes it can organize.  Liberal understandings of politics and public life have been challenged by feminists, critical race theorists, and radical democrats.  In view of structural change and the crisis of dominant political institutions, it has become clear that our understanding of politics needs careful reformulation.  We need to develop new conceptions of what it means to be political, how the individual and the self are politically situated in the world, and how political action and resistance (or transformations) are possible. This second workshop for social and political thought at Michigan State University will bring these perspectives together and discuss new perspectives for understanding the political sphere within our current social situation.

Speakers

Amy Allen (Dartmouth College); Feminism, Foucault, Continental Philosophy; author of The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory

Todd Hedrick (Michigan State University); Critical Theory, Habermas, Philosophy of Law, Social and Political Philosophy

Simon Critchley (New School); Poststructuralism, Continental Philosophy, author of Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, Things Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, On Humor

Kristie Dotson (Michigan State University); Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Epistemology, Social and Political Philosophy, editor of  Race, Hybridity and Miscegenation

Robert Gooding-Williams (University of Chicago), Critical Race Theory, Nietzsche, Social and Political Philosophy, author of Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism, Look, a Negro!: Philosophical Essays on Race, Culture and Politics

Roberto Nigro (Michigan State University); Foucault, Marx, Social and Political Philosophy; editor/translator of Foucault, Introduction to Kant’s Anthropology

Organization and RSVP

Prof. Christian Lotz

Michigan State University

Dept. of Philosophy

503 South Kedzie Hall

East Lansing, MI 48824

517.353.9392 (Office)

517.355.4490 (Dept.)

http://www.msu.edu/~lotz

lotz@msu.edu

TOC

‘I Like Your Colour!’ skin bleaching and geographies of race in urban Ghana – Jemima Pierre

why queer diaspora? – Meg Wesling

diasporic governmentality: on the gendered limits of migrant wage-labour in Portugal – Kesha Fikes

wal-mart, ‘katrina’, and other ideological tricks: Jamaican hotel workers in Michigan – Deborah A Thomas

engendering ‘race’ in calls for diasporic community in Sweden – Lena Sawyer

postcolonial criticism, transnational identifications and the hegemonies of dancehall’s academic and popular performativities – Denise Noble

the comic side of gender trouble and Bert Williams’ signature act – Michelle Ann Stephens

We have been teaching gender issues and feminist theory for many years, and we know that there is certainly a diversity of views among women, and men, about what counts as feminist or as good for women. Some may see a competent woman running for V.P as inevitably a step forward for women’s equality. But consider this.

First, a woman who supports the war and supports Republican economic policies while opposing universal health coverage will harm millions of women in this country if elected. Women bear the brunt of economic slumps since we are still routinely paid less and we more often have sole childcare responsibilities. We often work in sectors of the labor market that are less likely to have health benefits. A spike in domestic violence has been a fallout of the war because soldiers are coming home with insufficient mental health benefits.

continue reading

Of often the Say What category comes from people who really don’t know much philosophy. Mansfield has no excuse though:

The early feminists were radicals inspired by Simone de Beauvoir, who thought it necessary to show that all sex differences were bourgeois conventions or stereotypes. They would show this not so much in regard to careers as in sex itself. They bought into the sexual revolution and decided that women could best show they are equal to men by becoming as predatory as the most wolfish men. This demonstration required the fallback assistance of ready abortion in case something should go wrong; and it gave new legitimacy to–this word is never used–spinsterhood. Single-parent families also gained respectability as women pressed their husbands with newly justifiable equality grievances, often leading to divorce.

As sex goes up in social estimation, love goes down. The trouble with love is that it narrows your options and endangers your independence. If you loved a man, you might actually want to put up with, or even admire, his ways. You may be sure that I am not the first one to notice that feminist women are unerotic.

…

Simone de Beauvoir had her guy in Jean-Paul Sartre, a high-strung couple if ever there was one.

Sarah Palin : opération « castration » – Jacques-Alain Miller

Jacques-alain Miller, psychanalyste

Le choix de Sarah Palin est un signe des temps. En politique, l’énonciation féminine est désormais appelée à dominer. Mais attention ! Il ne s’agit plus des femmes qui jouaient des coudes en se modelant sur les hommes. Nous entrons dans l’ère des femmes postféministes, qui, sans barguigner, font la peau aux hommes politiques. La transition a été parfaitement visible durant la campagne de Hillary : elle a commencé par jouer le commandant en chef, et ça n’a pas marché. Alors, elle a envoyé un message subliminal qui disait quelque chose comme : « Obama ? Il n’a rien dans le pantalon. » Elle a aussitôt remonté, mais trop tard. Sarah Palin prend le relais, mais, plus jeune de quinze ans, elle est autrement féroce, elle manie le sarcasme féminin avec un naturel incomparable, elle châtre ouvertement ses adversaires mâles, et avec une franche jubilation, tandis que les malheureux restent cois : attaquer une femme qui joue de sa féminité pour les ridiculiser et les réduire à l’impuissance, ils ne savent pas. Pour l’instant, une femme qui abat la carte « castration » est imbattable.

En France, on avait pu voir Ségolène accomplir l’opération « castration » sur Fabius et Strauss-Kahn, mais par la suite, toute à se polir une image de madone, elle négligea Sarkozy, qui sut la peindre en évaporée nunuche. Quant aux Martine Aubry ou Michèle Alliot-Marie, c’est l’ancien modèle.

Quelle est précisément la différence entre les femmes de ces deux époques ? Les premières imitent l’homme, elles respectent le phallus, et font comme si elles l’avaient. Les nouvelles savent que ce n’est qu’un semblant, elles ne le prennent pas au sérieux : c’est la féminité décomplexée. Une Sarah Palin n’affiche aucun manque, n’a peur de rien, pond des enfants tout en maniant le fusil, se présente comme une force qui va, « un pitbull avec du rouge à lèvres ».

Obama a-t-il déjà perdu ? En ne choisissant pas Hillary comme partenaire-sur les instances de son épouse, dit-on, elle aussi très pitbull-, il a ouvert un boulevard à McCain, qui s’y est engouffré. Grâce à Palin, McCain est revenu dans la course. Sarah passionne l’Amérique, elle apporte en politique un nouvel Eros. Si Obama gagne, elle a les meilleures chances d’être son challenger dans quatre ans. Si c’est McCain, Hillary sera son adversaire numéro un. Dans tous les cas, une nouvelle race de femmes politiques monte en puissance.

“Emancipation is not an all or nothing affair”

Interview with Nancy Fraser

In Honor of Iris Marion Young: Theorist and Practitioner of Justice

Special issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy (2007)

Todd, Cain (2007) Aesthetic, Ethical, and Cognitive Value.

Schoeman, Marinus (2007) Generosity as a central virtue in Nietzsche’s ethics.

Olivier, Bert (2007) Nietzsche, immortality, singularity and eternal recurrence.

Kotzee, Ben (2007) Our Vision and our Mission: Bullshit, Assertion and Belief.

Tännsjö, Torbjörn (2007) Social Psychology and the Paradox of Revolution.

Hurst, Andrea (2007) Supposing Truth is a Woman – What Then?

A new SEP entry.

New entry of SEP

In her wonderfully crafted book, Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race and Gender, Ellen K. Feder provides an original philosophical account of the complex relationships between race and gender. Feder’s analysis begins where most others end: with the complaint that we seem unable to attend to both race and gender at the same time. Many philosophers, especially feminists of color, have worked hard to get others to notice our inability to discuss race and gender together. Feder builds on that work, with a particular indebtedness to that of Hortense Spillers, to provide an account of how and why we repeatedly fail to attend to multiple differences simultaneously, even though we know that they are intertwined. Feder achieves this by telling stories that reveal the different ways that power acts both within and on families to shape us as gendered and raced persons.

Continue reading the review

Interviews with Spivak, entitled The Post-Colonial Critic.

Link

The Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy’s fall 2007 is about Noelle McAfee’s “Two Feminism”.

Link

The recently formed Society for Interdisciplinary Feminist Phenomenology is pleased to announce the launch of our website. SIFP was formed by Professors Bonnie Mann and Beata Stawarska, both faculty members in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon; Dr. Sara Heinämaa, Senior lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland, Professor of Women’s Studies at the Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at the University of Oslo, Norway, and International Adviser of SIFP; and Dr. Eva Maria Simms, Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University and the National Adviser of SIFP. Please visit the new website, located at

http://whp.uoregon.edu/sifp

for more information about the society and our activities, to create a “scholars page,” join our listserve, and more!

SIFP’s activities have been made possible through funding from the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Philosophy.

A note from Jeffrey Paris, incoming Executive Editor: The Radical Philosophy Review invites scholars to submit articles and review essays. We publish in all areas of radical philosophy, including political philosophy, postmodern social theory, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminist, queer, and disability studies, political economy, analyses of war and empire, and more. The recent direction of the journal has been to inquire into the space where recent movements in European philosophy (analyses and extensions of the work of Foucault, Agamben, Zizek, Derrida, etc.) meet critical and post-colonial theory (Frankfurt School, post-Marxism, cultural studies, etc.). We are also interested in announcements of recently published books in radical philosophy that might be appropriate for review. For more information and to forward submissions, please contact Executive Editor Jeffrey Paris (Department of Philosophy, University of San Francisco), paris@usfca.edu. RPR is a print journal, peer-reviewed and indexed in numerous periodicals including the Philosopher’s Index. Subscription information and Tables of Contents for all issues are available at http://pdcnet.org/rprtoc.html.

Radical Philosophy Review — Volume 10, Number 1 (2007)

Eduardo Mendieta & Jeffrey Paris: Editors’ Introduction

Articles

Mario Saenz: Living Labor in Marx

Kathryn Russell: Feminist Dialectics and Marxist Theory

Patricia Huntington: Listening to Zapatismo: A Reflection on Spiritual Deracination

Book Reviews

Paula M. L. Moya & Michael Hames-Garcia’s Reclaiming Identity, and Paula M. L. Moya’s Learning from Experience, reviewed by Mariana Ortega

Ann Cudd’s Analyzing Oppression, reviewed by Cynthia Willett

(h/t: Jeffrey Paris)

KRITIKE: An Online Journal of Philosophy | www.kritike.org ISSN 1908-7330

CALL FOR PAPERS | December 2007 Issue

KRITIKE is a Filipino independent, open access, peer-reviewed, and interdisciplinary journal of philosophy founded by a group of University of Santo Tomas alumni. The journal seeks to publish articles and book reviews by local and international authors across the whole range of philosophical topics and schools of thought. The journal primarily caters to works by academic philosophers and graduate students, but contributions by undergraduate students are also welcomed.

KRITIKE is interested in publishing original articles across the whole range of philosophical topics and schools of thought. Publishing in the journal is not limited to academic philosophers and philosophy majors; we do encourage contributors from disciplines other than Philosophy (Political Science, Literature, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Communication, History, Linguistics, Law, Economics, Natural Sciences, etc). The basic condition is that the paper should have a strong philosophical bent to it.

KRITIKE is also accepting book reviews of books published within the years 2004-2007 (2000 words maximum).

Please send your submissions to editors@kritike.org

Please visit of our CFP page for the guidelines for submission

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New entry at SEP:

Metaphysics is the study of the basic structure of reality. It considers, for example, concepts such as identity, causation, substance, and kind, that seem to be presupposed by any form of inquiry; and it attempts to determine what there is at the most general level. For example, are there minds in addition to bodies? Do things persist through change? Is there freewill or is all action determined by prior events? It may seem bizarre, then, to suggest that there is such a thing as feminist metaphysics. What could be feminist or anti-feminist about metaphysics?

However, feminist theorists have asked whether and, if so, to what extent our frameworks for understanding the world are distorting in ways that privilege men or masculinity. What, if anything, is eclipsed if we adopt an Aristotelian framework of substance and essence, or a Cartesian framework of immaterial souls present in material bodies? And is what’s left out of such frameworks relevant to the devaluation or oppression of women? Feminists have also considered the structure of social reality and the relationship between the social world and the natural world. Because social structures are often justified as natural, or necessary to control what’s natural, feminists have questioned whether such references to nature are legitimate. This has led to considerable work on the idea of social construction and, more specifically, the social construction of gender.

The rest